Richard Nelson Bolles

Richard Nelson Bolles (born March 19, 1927 in Milwaukee , † March 31, 2017 in Danville , CA ) was an American pastor in the Episcopal Church who wrote counseling literature for job seekers. His best known work is What Color is your Parachute? from 1970.

life and work

Bolles was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to one of three children. His brother Don Bolles (1928–1976) later became a journalist. His paternal grandfather was Stephen Bolles (1866-1941), from 1939-1941 a member of Congress for Wisconsin. His father editor at Associated Press . Richard grew up in Teaneck , NJ , where he graduated from high school in 1945.

After a brief period in the Navy , he studied chemical engineering at MIT and then physics at Harvard University , where he earned a BA. He then attended the Episcopal Theological Seminary in New York City, which he left with a Masters degree. After ordination, Bolles served as a seminary lecturer and pastor, first in churches in New Jersey, then in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco.

In addition to his church activities, Bolles led workshops on career planning for theologians. In 1970 he published What Color is your Parachute? , initially self-published and addressed to theologians. In 1972 he rewrote the work so that it was generally aimed at job seekers. The book was published by Ten Speed ​​Press and developed into a bestseller as well as a long-seller . As of 2010, the book was published in 22 languages, and more than 10 million copies have been sold worldwide.

Bolles died at the age of 90 and was married for the fourth time. He had four children.

Method and aftermath

The approach of the Bolles works is to start from the strengths of a job seeker, plus the question of the preferred environment for work. This results in a profile for the type of employment and target company. In order to get this position, job seekers should use active networking instead of passively studying job advertisements.

Under the name Life / Work-Planning (L / WP) or Life Work Planning , seminars and advanced training courses based on the Bolles approach are still offered today. The first seminars in Europe took place in 1975 under the direction of the Swiss Daniel Porot. In 1982 the Scot Walt Hopkins introduced the courses in England. In 1995, the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster was the first German university to hold such seminars as further training courses.

The basic concept of the TalentKompass NRW , which was published by the Ministry of Labor of the State of NRW with financial support from the State of NRW and the European Social Fund to support job seekers and people in a professional orientation phase, is also based on ideas from Richard N. Bolles, Daniel Porot and John C. Webb.

Fonts

• Richard Bolles: What Color Is Your Parachute? Ten Speed ​​Press, Berkeley 1972, ISBN 0-89815-931-8 . (German translation by Ines Bergfort, edited by Madeleine Leitner: Getting started with a dream job. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1999, ISBN 978-3-593-36294-6 .)
• Richard Bolles: The Three Boxes of Life. Ten Speed ​​Press, Berkeley 1978, ISBN 0-913668-58-3 .
• Richard Bolles and Howard Figler: The Career Counselor's Handbook. Ten Speed ​​Press, Berkeley 1978, ISBN 1-58008-157-6 .
• Richard Bolles: The job-hunter's survival guide . Ten Speed ​​Press, Berkeley 2010, ISBN 9781580080262 . (German translation by Nicole Hölsken: Finding jobs in tough times: the survival guide . Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2010, ISBN 978-3-593-39245-5 .)

Web links

• Job Hunters Bible , website of Richard Nelson Bolles

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d} Paul Vitello: Richard Bolles Dies at 90; Wrote 'What Color Is Your Parachute?' . Obituary in the New York Times, April 1, 2017.
2. ↑ Andreas Schnell: Tutoring for the dream job TAZ Archive from April 4, 2015
3. ↑ TalentKompass NRW - What is it? Accessed July 1, 2020 (German).